


Edge of the Abyss

by KumoriYami



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Mass Effect Kink Meme, Shepard Siblings, Shepard Twins, Turians
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-12 22:23:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1202731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KumoriYami/pseuds/KumoriYami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the Kmeme. original prompt taken from http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/7674.html?thread=36298234#t36298234 </p><p>AU fic. The First Contact War ended with humanity surrendered after the turians attacked Earth. Under the oppressive rule of the Hierarchy, humans live in fear of tomorrow and what horrors their turian masters will unleash upon them. However, hope is not all lost. Now thirty years later after humanity's defeat, an organization called Cerberus works to liberate humanity the oppressive rule of the turian hierarchy, and one of their operatives only known as "Shepard" is one of the organization's best operatives' working towards bringing light to the plight of humanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Some ideas taken from that prompt. using both shepards cuz it works with the idea I have. earthborn +? not sure bout complete background cuz this idea has the Alliance never really taking off cuz of alien overlords (basically so humanity only has limited mass effect technology and whatever the turians care to share) paragon/renegade behaviour undetermined... and AU obviously but not sure if reapers or not. Still working out some ideas.

Had this on the kmeme then decided to move it here. I'll probably still keep updating it in Part XXI but it's easier for me to have everything here cuz my comp keeps shutting down on me... stupid windows 8 -.-  
Originally here: http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/7674.html?thread=37740026#t37740026

\---  
Seven Years Ago

The lone individual with red hair, though that was hidden, was letting out sharp panting breaths as they ran. It would only be in thirty second that the bomb would go off. The plan was effectively a success though. Heck, all of their operations have been successes, but they knew better than to get cocky with their victories. Their oppressive turian rulers had yet to find out that their strategy involved using road maps from the late 20th century and causing chaos surrounding the target within the surrounding ten streets, not that anyone but the members would know that. No one had records that went back that far any more but them, and given that the Hierarchy had gone and upgraded Earth's transportation systems as a "show of good faith," though they had literally grounded humanity and ban all access Prothean technology so it was unlikely that the turians would bother trying to find them as people had nowhere to go.

The individual stopped for a moment as they heard the explosion. The goal to take out a dextro food depot was apparently a success. It was extremely difficult even getting in such a building but cutting off the turian's supply chains was a priority for the resistance movements though it was extremely hard to move anywhere across the globe. The idea was to cause the Hierarchy enough food shortages to have them bring in space-worthy ships. Humans were hardly ever seen outside the Sol Relay because of the Hierarchy's restrictions and thus humanity could never appeal to the (what they heard as anyway as the) galactic seat of power for help... 

Having seen the smoke in the distance, a sigh of relief was heard though it was short-lived. Alarms could be heard off in the distance and he quickly faded into the shadows and searched the building he was by for a certain brick. After locating it, a passage opened and he was in the basement of a brewery. 

John smiled as the doorway sealed itself behind him and carefully examined the poorly lit room. He eyed one of the smaller wine racks carefully and got down to search for a button that moved it out of the way to revealed a hole in the ground and a ladder. Before leaving he grabbed some fine wine as everyone had a reason to celebrate and knew that Kaidan's father would know what happened to it.

\---  
Having left the “outpost,” John began going about his way throughout the sealed North American sewer system, courtesy of the turians. The system was effectively a labyrinth of endless twists and turns and it had taken him and his friends years to map them out. Still they supposedly had been used by the Alliance during ground battles and still served as an excellent way to hide and move around though they stunk. The Reds were always thankful that the turians never bothered to check with these tunnels though they knew that it was a simple matter to topple any above infrastructure as John himself was a not really employed engineer of sorts. 

His job usually involved working on plans for sabotage, building weapons or working on new tech to use against the turians, though when he wasn't doing that he and some of the Tenth Street Reds worked at their founder and leader’s shipping company, and because of that, they had a network of sorts across the UNAS though communication was okay at best. 

After a while, John came across a certain intersection and ladder and headed up to the surface. This entrance was the only addition the Reds had made during their years of operation to the tunnels. It also served as the only emergency escape route at their “headquarters.” 

He emerged through the hidden doorway of their small building’s storage closet and covered the entrance behind him before opening the door where he saw the familiar sight dark basement which was the storage area of their leader’s “company.”

“John. Welcome back.” Kaidan Alenko had been a member of the gang since its founding and smiled as he was handed the drinks. “You didn’t happen to take these from Dad’s did you?” Kaidan’s father had enjoyed some success with his brewery despite the ridiculous trade regulations placed by the turians though part of it was owed to that his son was a biotic that was trained with their own cabals and was recognized for it though that seemed like ages ago. 

“Who me? Course not though I thought it would be best to pick something up seeing how months of planning finally paid off.” He laughed for a moment as his best friend rolled his eyes before inspecting one of the empty packages that had come in. It bore a strange emblem that had recently been coming to the media’s attention. “It’d be best to share it with the others now that it’s after closing... and exactly what is this?”  
“Don’t know, except that was addressed to our glorious leader. She’s… waiting for you upstairs.” Was it his imagination or did Kaiden seem a little… worried?  
“Got it.” John nodded good-bye as he went upstairs, walking by countless packages and various scanners used by the company. He headed over to the lounge where he found a red-haired woman sighing aloud eating a small dinner and reading some papers.   
“You okay sis?”

“Yeah I’m good.” Despite saying this, Jane let out another large sigh. “Sorry that I had to send you in though our mission today was more for my field of expertise but you were the only one up to the task.” It was no secret in the Reds that their leader and her brother were their best operatives though it was general knowledge that they usually did not execute the most vital parts of the operations unless it was absolutely necessary such as today’s mission. 

John was skilled at working with nearly any sort of technology and usually provided support while Jane usually scouted out their targets because of her position as the owner of “Doe Shipping and Transportation,” and was extremely adept at noticing details and loopholes, and slipping about unnoticed. Her observational skills was what allowed her to make a business of transporting and delivering goods around as she took the fullest advantage of all loopholes the turians had failed to cover. The company had prospered under the policy of ‘no information necessary’ with regards to who was the sender or what was being sent so long as they passed the required scans made by the turians technology, though they also sold information on how to get around the imposed tech.

“Don’t worry about it. Your notes were extremely detailed as usual and explained everything to the letter. Anyway… what’s up?” He glanced over papers she was reading. It was odd to see anything in print nowadays. Nearly everything was on some electronic device that the turians called ‘datapads.’ ”And what are you reading?”

“An instruction manual for something that was sent specifically to me. We got a… job offer I guess you could call it...and so did Kaiden since he’s a biotic. Though he agreed to go through with whatever we decided.” She frowned and scratched her head. “That organization called Cerberus wants us to join. From what I’ve read about the organization is that they intend to be humanity’s sword against our alien oppressors…even sent me a fancy cloaking device as a “gift,” but I’m more concerned about how they found out about us.”  
“What do you mean by that?”  
“They addressed their package to Jane Shepard . Not Jane Doe.” Hardly anyone knew of their “real” names. To the world they were simply the just nobodies. The Doe siblings were just another pair of orphans from the war with the turians whose records of existence were destroyed and grew up in some orphanage like countless others. Hence, no one had cared to verify any records of the “Shepards.”

“That’s… impossible.” John immediately became worried at the news. He agreed wholeheartedly with the decision to hide their identities given the surveillance of others with any trace of Alliance military in their backgrounds at a very young age. Notable individuals and their families, such as a Steven Hackett and the Williams family, who had fought against the turians still had their freedoms heavily restricted. 

“They also know about the Tenth Street Reds’ leader and her capabilities. Hence the cloaking device they sent me… as a show of ‘good faith.’” Slight alarm could be seen in her emerald eyes. It was true that infiltration was her specialty. “They also sent you something. An Omni-tool.” She handed him a box with the supposed device inside as well as a manual for it for the functions that the organization had figured out. “They also know that your speciality is tech.”

“What exactly do they want? I mean besides from us joining them?” John eagerly accepted the package and found the tool inside. He had seen them before but only because the turians used them. He was honestly curious though. No human was allowed to even touch one of these and it was punishable by death to be in possession of one. “Though I have to admit…this is some really nice bait…”

“Cerberus wants to *ahem* train us so that we can work more effectively and take part in larger operations on the behalf on humanity in their goal to liberate Earth from our turian oppressors.” Jane handed him another paper and sighed again. “They also have a long list of immediate sign-up benefits as well as their assurance our cover business and our friends and their families will be well taken care of…”

“This seems too good to be true…and I can tell you’re interested.” Jane just nodded her head quietly. Her eyes took on their sharper gaze as he went through the list. whoever Cerberus' backers were must have been fairly wealthy because they described in detail what the Reds members and their families would receive.

“I am. I mean… On our own world, we’re treated like second-class citizens. We even have to turn a blind eye to our own people being beaten by the turians…” John knew his older sister had felt everything she was talking about first hand, even as a child she had protected him from it…and she still bore some scars from the experiences. “Is it so wrong to want to wish that we could actually do even more to help our own people?”

“…I know what you mean... do you really think that is Cerberus really the answer?” Although turian propaganda painted Cerberus as a terrorist organization, there was no doubt that some of their methods were extreme at times.

“I don’t know John. All I know is I… I don’t want want anyone else to go through what we went through… why I created the Reds… to give people hope.” 

They both knew the effect the Tenth Street Reds had had in every city they were in when they pulled off a 'heist.' People saw them as a liberators at times though the group itself was humbled by those opinions. “…and earth being free is something that I’ve always dreamed about.”

“So are you going to do it?”

The two stared for a moment in silence as their faces both broke in to small smiles. “Of course I am. I need to make sure my little brother will have a future.”

“And I need to make sure my protective sister sees that.” Jane rolled her eyes and made a weak smile before embracing her brother tightly.


	2. Chapter 2

Today

Jane mused quietly to herself as she ate her meal in the mess hall. It was odd for her to recount the past but given that her latest close call with death with she reminded herself that she did not regret choosing this path. The decision that she had made so long ago.

It felt good to actively take part in something that wanted to push for humanity’s freedom. True to the name of Cerberus, there were three main leaders, all veterans of the First Contact War who were supposedly “killed in action.” Eva Coré, the most decorated soldier of the trio, directed operations and missions. Ben Hislop handled Cerberus “real world” subsidiaries and companies; and Jack Harper, who founded Cerberus and obviously the head, was in charge of the organization’s science divisions. 

It was very different with than the Reds though John and Jane were technically assigned to none of the organization’s three divisions as they were involved with all of them. Jane still worked in the business world as the head of the Doe Shipping and John still worked in with new tech and research. Both however, went about on countless top secret missions as the infamous operative who was (unfortunately) known to the Hierarchy’s Earthen enforcer presence as “Shepard.” They had spotty ideas about the human's identity but they also knew that the individual was fairly elusive, probably had military training and was probably employed by Cerberus.

No one would have guessed that this Shepard was actually two people and given that John and Jane’s expertise in the field was quiet similar, it was hard to differentiate that there were two of them, especially in the midst of gunfire and explosions. Under Cerberus’ tutelage, the siblings had become experts in their respected fields of expertise and became even more deadly with their respective specialized weapons. Still along the way they shared in amazing experiences, met new people and worked on some very interesting projects. 

True to their word, Cerberus had taken care of every member of the Reds and were all well-off, though they did recruit some of Jane’s self-proclaimed “lieutenants” such as Gianna Parasini, a former cop turned secretary, scientist brothers David and Gavin Archer, and Dr. Garrett and Ann Bryson, a father and daughter team of scientists who were blacklisted as heretics by the turians as they were former Prothean researchers. They had been recruited by Jane mainly so that they could continue their work and jobs with the Red’s limited resources and help their cause. Even one of Kaiden’s friend named Rahna Demir who was also a gifted biotic, had been recruited by the organization. 

The red-haired woman frowned as a news story caught her eyes on the TV. As usual, there weren’t any good news, but she knew it was better to know regardless. Tonight’s top story revolved around how a company named Conatix Industries was being shut down by the Hierarchy as it had suspected ties to a terrorist group. It was usually just an excuse to shut down the development and release of promising research as the turians would never allow a group of humans to come up with achievements greater than their own or receive information that could better human lives. This had become increasingly common ever since the Sirta Foundation created medi-gel for humans, something that the turians couldn’t use since they were dextro-amino life forms, though that was secretly created on the side. The aliens thankfully never suspected that the company, along with Binary Helix and Shepard’s own company, had ties to turian-proclaimed terrorist group Cerberus. It did help to have records that weren’t completely spotless to divert suspicions. 

The aired program only reminded Jane of the power these alien intruders held on her home planet. Hardly anyone was safe from their watchful eyes and it made things worse to know that they also employed large human populations to work on their own constructs or projects, sometimes as live research material and used even employed to spy on their own species. These people ironically had the only secure jobs though they paid pennies. 

As the program drew to a close, Shepard took note of how a young woman stood up but not before she furiously slammed the table she and her sister were sitting at. “Miri!” Miranda’s sister, Oriana was only surprised as her sister stormed off to her room leaving her to follow drawing a lot of attention as they left. The Lawson sisters were publically acknowledged (as least within this Cerberus base) as geniuses so there was little surprise at the attention it received. They had been fortunate enough to come from an extremely wealthy family though their mother had died with giving birth to Oriana. They had no genetic modifications to them though the eldest had powerful biotics. They both excelled in the fields of science and technology following their father’s footsteps. Henry Lawson had dedicated his life to ensure that his and his wife’s legacy would live on through their daughters and took every length to make sure that they would have every edge they could possibly need as any father would do if he were able in addition to being one of Cerberus’ premier scientists and maintaining his own cover and position as the one of the board of directors of the Sirta Foundation. 

After watching the two women leave, Jane grabbed a meal tray for her brother and left to go find him. He was probably working on workable stealth system for one of Cerberus’ more prioritized projects. A few years back Jane had stolen some ship designs and Prothean tech from a turian communications centre that was supposed to be transported off-planet on an… unplanned mission. The theft itself brought Cerberus scientists and researchers together from all cells, as well as her brother and the Lawson sisters together to work toward a space-worthy vehicle that could make its own FTL jumps and go about undetected in presumably hostile space. Although it had proven to be a difficult task as humanity had no space ships of their own, the majority of the mysterious vehicle had been completed. 

“God dammit!” She chuckled lightly as she watched her brother smash his fists against the table just as Miranda did earlier as she entered their room with a meal tray. It was a fairly small room with two bunks. Nearly everyone had to bunk with someone though it was usually between their own units or divisions at this base.   
"John, you could take a break from that you know." She handed John the food, effectively telling him to stop working and to turn away from the computer. 

"Thanks. It's just that this is infuriating!” He eagerly began eating with vigour that probably indicated that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast and that he had been glued to that screen since he got up. “I don’t know if this will work! I mean theoretically the stealth drive for that project should work but without knowing the exact features of a turian ship …” He swallowed then fiddled with his fork. Jane recognized it as one of her brother’s quirks for when he was upset with something. “We don’t know if these countermeasures will work…Not that we can really understand them anyway. The translators the turians provided are good for audio…not their writings…ugh.”

“John.” Her voice took on a slightly annoyed but firm tone. “You did your best. Everyone did their best. You can’t blame yourself for something like that, and you know how difficult it is to get anything with turian writing on it, especially ship blueprints… Didn’t the illusive Mr. Harper himself complement you and your work with Miranda?” At this point there was a wicket grin on her face. There were a lot of rumours that the Lawson family heir was interested in the equally smart ‘Doe’ sibling. The woman herself and her sister were some of the few who were close enough to both Shepards to actually know of their identity. 

“Now you’re just poking fun at me sis. Anyway how was your day? You told me yesterday that you had to deal with some annoying corporate crap.”

“I did. A company called Synthetic Insights was… looking at potential test subjects for their hybrid organic/AI projects…” She sighed and she shook her head recalling how it had almost cost her everything. “Let’s just say that there were no negotiations and we destroyed their no-longer existing facility…”

“You didn’t… bump into anyone did you?” Jane knew that John could see the anguish on her face. She never got this upset unless it involved certain individuals...  
“No I didn’t, but one of them did leave me…no, us, a message.” 

“Who was it this time?” He abruptly cut Jane off. It was obvious that he was just as agitated as she was. They could literally count on two hands the… notable turians whose excessive cruelty had earned their attention though they did already as they were cruel masters to Earth and her people. To make matters worse, half of them baited ‘Shepard’ whenever they could.

“Lorik Qui'in wanted to us to know that he already has turians working on experimenting on our people over in the European Union, and the Chinese People's Federation despite our best efforts…” Anger swelled in her as she spoke. Qui’in was a ruthless businessman who had guards with him 24/7 and near impossible to touch as the head of (Earth’s) Synthetic Insights. The turian cared little about humans and saw them as a means to achieving AI technology. Like most of his kind’s presence on Earth, he viewed humans as garbage and reported to one Desolas Arterius. “And worse of all, he was so… freaking… polite sounding in the message.” 

Jane threw herself onto her bunk and sighed aloud. Bad guys with extremely good mannerisms terrified her to some degree. “Was the mission a success?”

“Yea. Some AI tech. Untested of course. Feels like a hollow victory though...” Jane contemplated getting some shut eye after seeing her brother's dejected look when they heard a knock on their door. John immediately checked to see who it was. 

"Excuse me, John, Jane. Sorry to bother you but Miri was called by Mr. Harper and Miss Coré. They have requested that you two join him as well." Oriana smiled as she greeted the two but looked as if she was holding some emotions backs. The mentioning of Coré meant that there was a field mission that Miranda was needed on, or at least that's what experience told them. 

"Understood. Thank you Oriana." Jane smiled warmly as she could sympathize with Lawson's feelings. Miranda and her father had a huge fight with Harper when they learnt that Oriana could possibly have been a field candidate. The eventual compromise of that fight was that Miranda would go in instead to the chagrin of the other leaders as she was responsible for some of her own projects and not an actual field operative herself at the time. Several missions later, though every time one of the Shepard siblings was in charge, those doubts being harboured were blown away though they did not like the idea of losing such a valuable scientist. 

"They'll be in meeting room #3."   
\---

Meeting room #3 was a large room so as Jane expected, there were more people seated. She and John quickly sat down and nodded hello to their colleagues gathered. Most of them look more troubled than usual but it was odd to see some of the familiar faces given that they were from different divions. Kaiden, Rahna and a Jacob Taylor from Coré's, Gianna was from Hislop's and Miranda and Ann Bryson from Harper’s were all faces she recognized though never saw in the same place. There were hardly any opportunities for all three divisions to work on one mission simultaneously, though it was more of a surprise to see Jack Harper sitting at the table. 

After a few moments and some others entered the room, Harper quietly nodded and the room fell into silence. "As you may have heard, thanks to Shepard, we recently acquired some valuable intelligence on the turians." He quietly operated his personal Omni-tool and the image of a family showed up on the overhead screen installed. "This is an image that Shepard retrieved in addition to some heavily encrypted AI research." In the blurry picture, the image of a couple, four very young girls and an elderly man. Presumably a grandfather.

As Harper fine-tuned the image, there were several frowns and gasps of shock in the room. Nearly everyone knew had seen at one point the elderly man in this image... He was practically one of Cerberus' heroes. Everyone knew of his refusal to allow the turians to claim Earth and how he died fighting for that freedom.

"Indeed. As some of you may know, the eldest in this picture is General Williams. One of the last Alliance greats. Although he is no longer among us, it is my belief that he passed on information to either his son or granddaughters that will greatly benefit our cause since he was the only one to have successfully stolen and operated a turian frigate and lived to talk about it for a time." He nodded in satisfaction at the sharp expressions that had been formed.   
"Given Ms. Parasini and Ms. Doe's recent discoveries the turians may or may not be planning to have the remaining members of the Williams family removed from play." He swallowed hard and his words were just as resolute. "I'm sending teams to London and Brazil. Some of our branches have reported hearing about a Williams having homes at those locations. Jane, Miranda you two are in charge of the London team. Jacob, Kaiden, you take a team to Brazil. We're bringing the best, and you are our best. You all have two hours to prepare and I'm counting on you all. Dismissed."


	3. Chapter 3

“John. Wake up. We’re at the border. We’re almost at our Russian facilities.”   
“Uh?” He warily opened his eyes to see Miranda trying to rouse him in the darkness. “What time is it?”

She sighed and tilted her head slightly before revealing an honest smile. “You’ve been asleep for most of the trip you know. Jane tells me that we’re to meet with the head of Cerberus’ Russian branches. Apparently he’s our way in to London and it’s almost 8 in the morning local time anyway”   
“His name is Oleg Petrovski. Apparently he’s also head of one of Cerberus’ front corporations. Haribon Security Industries. They provide security to whoever has the money, and on the side make weapons for the European resistance movements.” Gianna spoke quietly to the two as she steered the vehicle as directed. A short distance away they could see a warehouse. 

In was general knowledge within Cerberus that Petrovski was also a First Contact War veteran though as he was technically a grunt during the battle. Compared to most, he fell under very little scrutiny as he was not a “prioritized person of interest” and “unlikely to cause problems.” He was also noted within the organization as one with Harper’s respect as he was forced to take leadership in his unit after their captain had been killed during the war and successfully fended off countless turian attacks. 

The three were supposed to be on duty piloting in the vehicle called the “Avro Arrow.” It was the only sky-vehicle that was able to endure the freezing conditions they had passed through and was one of the few that used VI-technology for ‘driving’ though having a human mind behind the wheel was something that Jane enforced. They also came equipped cargo holds that were large enough to hold a small vehicle about the size of a Kodiak, and were perfect for smuggling because of some (major but completely safe) factory flaws. 

There were two Arrows in their small convoy. Apparently Petrovski had Harper send some much needed supplies and food for his people in addition to the many explosives, weapons and tech that he felt that would be needed on their mission to extract any Williams they could find. Their secondary was to free any others who were imprisoned that could offer expertise or help to Cerberus but was unfortunately impossible to escape with absolutely everyone. At the checkpoint, the two vehicles were directed to a large warehouse where they were supposed to meet the man who had was getting them into London. As the ‘capital of the planet,’ London was one of the hardest cities to get into. There was a ridiculous amount of security there as it served as mainly as a prison to its residents. Today the majority of Earth’s political decisions were still made there and like Vancouver, London had been home to an Alliance base and was a constant reminder to their defeat in the First Contact War.

After a moment, Gianna pulled up into the warehouse and they all got out of the vehicle to join the others unloading the vehicles. John went over to find his sister mulling over something with Petrovsky with an unhappy look in her eye. “John. Petrovski’s managed to get what we need to get us into London but there are a few problems.” As she spoke, she handed him a bunch of fake identities for their team and a few key cards presumably to get around London. 

“Indeed.” The man spoke with a deep voice that sounded remarkably calm. “My… lieutenant, Raymond Ashe was recently captured and was taken to Eden Prison facility. My sources tell me that it is the most fortified compound on the planet and that one of your Williams is there…”

“Do you have the prison blueprints?” John was not eager to go off to go to prison, even if it was for a mission.

“Yes, but even with them they won’t help with our biggest problem, which is the facilities location.” Petrovski quieted himself as he produced the blueprints on his Omni-tool for John and Jane to see and immediately their eyes widened. “Indeed. The prison itself is a floating facility or ship. Whatever it is , it’s roughly… 8 kilometres in the air and has built in defences. From what we can tell it uses mass effect technology to stay afloat but other than that, we can tell you no one has ever escaped Eden.”

“So. Your lieutenant and supposedly one of the Williams family is in a giant floating prison.”

“Yes.”

“And no one’s ever escaped or broken in to this prison?”

“Yes.”

"And Harper expects us to succeed?"

"I believe so."

“Pigeon crap.” Jane slapped herself in the face as she considered their task. As Shepard, her and John’s missions were usually called nigh improbable but finding a getting into a state of the art prison facility that floated in the sky and breaking out of it was pushing it. “There anything else we should know about it?”

“All our electronics and plasma weapons do not work so you’ll have to procure a turian ship to get there.”

“Just great…” At the very least, John could tell that his sister was grateful that the Cerberus forces on this side of the planet had some very old school weapons that still worked. “Well if that's what we have to do to complete Harper's mission, that's what we'll do."  
\---

A few hours later Jane Shepard had this wicked glint in her eye as they finally passed the last of the security checks that they had to go through to enter London. That meant she had at least had a plan of sorts. Petrovski was only able to get four people in though the remainder of Jane's team were positioned outside of the city with skycars for extraction and support. Now, Jane, Miranda, John and an Eddie Lang, a communication specialist best translator that Cerberus could afford to send were entering London using the excuse that they were visiting a so-called family friend. Twelve hours, the guard told them. Twelve hours, the extent of "turian kindness" that was shown to the residents of this prison city who had family elsewhere. Twelve hours to complete a mission. 

The clock was ticking. They had eleven hours and fifty-seven minutes to break in to a secret prison facility find a person with the surname Williams and Petrovski's right hand man lest they wanted to become permanent residents of a place so far from home. 

\--  
small side notes: 8kmish = 5 milesish; idea for Eden was mainly Eden Prime though shortened to eden seemed appropriate


	4. Chapter 4

“Miranda, John. Set your timers. John, set yours ten minutes faster.” Jane left out a huff as they headed out of the building. “Two options. Hijack a ride or head back through London’s front door. Problem with leaving through airspace means that Alison and Solomon Gunn, Danner Gossimah and Dinah Grenway will become missing persons and our faces will have to disappear.” They all nodded. Everyone knew of how London “city servants” kept tabs on absolutely everyone in the city so if someone ever escaped there would be a worldwide search to locate them and bring them back “home,” then usually prison, never to be seen again. “Also, make sure your gear is all secured. We have a lot of work to do and can’t afford to lose anything.” Smuggling weapons under turian noses was quiet an easy thing, especially if they were relatively old-school. It was a simple matter of breaking them into smaller puzzle pieces and carrying them separately in then reassembling them. 

“So what are we going to do commander?” John had an expectant look on his face as he asked his sister. She personally didn’t like to be called something so… formal, but him joking as they went into a mission was his way of trying to get everyone to loosen up despite the odds stacked against them. 

“First hour. Recon. Eddie I need you tap into the turians’ communication network. I don’t care where, just get it done. Miranda I want you to get eyes out on all turian ship depots or garages in the area that send ships to Eden. John, I want you heading out to taverns, pubs or wherever people gather that share information. We need information. Loopholes, weaknesses in buildings, anything.”  
“And what will you be doing sis?”  
“Need to spend time on a…hunch of sorts.’   
“A hunch?” Miranda obviously didn’t like that idea, not even the idea about splitting up but priorities were priorities. Chasing down information was one thing but a possibly nonexistent ghost was something she didn’t really agree with.  
“Paul Anderson. Mechanic. His son… I seem to recall that he had started up his own resistance movement here in England though he fell off the grid. Was Alliance. Veteran and N7.”  
“I remember him now… His son personally congratulated by Jon Grissom himself! He even became the first N7…” Lang muttered quietly in admiration. The N7 designation was a well-recognized prestigious title that was a pipe dream to achieve as the Alliance was no more. “I heard he disappeared.”

“He did. Going to find his father. I remember reading one time that after his son’s disappearance he and his wife… a nurse I think, were questioned nearly every day for at least a year. Nothing ever turned up but I have my own suspicions.” Jane spoke carefully as they walked down the grey streets. Everyone looked so tired. Tired of living. “I don’t plan on announcing my presence…Anyway, we need to meet up by Big Ben in an hour and fifteen.” Without saying another word, Jane headed towards the nearest dark alley and vanished from all sight.  
\---  
From what she could remember, the Anderson’s son appeared in an image that had Big Ben in the background when she and Kaiden had looked through some very old and sealed records from the former Alliance News Network. She had a few hunches about the actual location where Paul Anderson worked and after a few eavesdropping sessions later, Jane had her general bearing. 

A short walk later, Jane saw a man smoking a cigarette outside of a garage. One of its doors were opened and there were some people on the inside talking. She carefully examined the situation. It looked like he was keeping watch…? She couldn’t be certain but opted to go closer, careful to avoid the puddles on the ground. Weird. The rest of London didn’t look like it had experienced rain recently. After walking into the garage, Jane stiffened. The man at the door had followed her and closed it. “Come out stranger, I know you’re here.” He had a slight British accent but it did nothing to muffle the familiar noise of a gun being cocked. 

\---

His colleagues had obvious confusion plastered to their faces. Jane honestly doubted that they heard of tactical cloaks given that they were cut off from most of the world. The oldest man looking one however remained calm. “I’m surprised mister… Exactly what gave me away?” Jane spoke as calmly as she could as she walked around the room silently drawing her own weapon and loading it though it had already quieter than this person’s. The others in the room were fidgeting nervously with their eyes darting around, but the old man remained quiet and calm and sat in his chair as if nothing was out of the ordinary. 

“We installed small vibration detectors outside. Hide them along the ground. Hardly anyone thinks that anything gets hidden in an innocent pool of water. Tells us if anyone unwanted is coming in advance. Now it’s your turn stranger, what do you want?” His stance was uneasy but his behaviour was that of a soldier. He could be Alliance but that seemed unlikely since he only looked a few years older than John. 

“I wanted to find someone… who I suspected had ties to a certain unique type of group that’s hard to find. They tend to operate in the shadows of cities but it’d be nice to know if this is a small get together of such a group.” Jane dropped her cloak though her gun was still trained on the man in front of her. She had his back. “And if you are of such a group, I’d hate to empty bullets into one fighting for the same cause.” Her eyes fell back to the old man in the corner and she lowered her gun. “I was trying to find Paul Anderson to see if I could get any information about his son’s whereabouts.”

“My son, David isn’t here miss, though it was as you suspected, these are some of the resistance of London.” The man obviously was alarmed at the fact that a secret was so easily exposed by Paul. “It’s all right Daniel, she’s obviously not with the turians.”

Daniel shook his head. It was obvious the old man had his own way of doing things. “Daniel Coats, London Resistance, Second-in Command. My associates here are Emily Wong, parents imprisoned in this once fair city for publishing illegal news stories; Kahlee Sanders, genius scientist with an Alliance background and Bilal Osaba son of a politician.”

He offered his hand and Jane immediately shook it. “I’m Jane… last name classified sorry. Cerberus agent on a mission to find a person with the surname Williams who is currently imprisoned on Eden in addition to the Russian Cerberus branch’s second first lieutenant.” 

Osaba let out a sigh as he turned away. “You should know that the David is the head of the Resistance movement here but he was captured years ago. No one knows where he is.”

“Bilal, you know where he is. Everyone does” Kahlee sounded almost desperate as she spoke as she turned to Jane. “They took him to Eden and since then we’ve done what we could to keep hope alive here, but it’s hard.”

“David kept us alive even though he had his own family to care to… He helped us fight when we couldn’t.” Emily joined in with Kahlee though she seemed more firm with words. “He’s definitely still alive...even if he’s stuck in the floating prison.”

“Then I’ll look for him when I’m there. It’s my job to deal with the hard missions, and this is definitely one of them. We need this to happen if we’re ever going to get the turians off our planet.”

Coats raised his hand and nodded almost gravely. “Taking back Earth has always been the Resistance’s number one priority. What exactly do you need?” Jane allowed herself to relax as she listened to Coats. And here she worried that she’d be going on a wild non-existent goose chase. 

After going over a lot of details, Coats left to begin preparations and Jane had to go as her hour was almost up. “Will you all be able to get through this safely?” Barely not strangers or not, she didn’t feel that it was just right to abandon people who would help her out later. 

“We’ll be all right. Thank you for doing this. By the way… have we met?”

“What?” Kahlee’s question threw Jane off-balance. It was one she would never have expected. Especially in a situation like this where planetary travel was heavily monitored and restricted. “No… I do not believe we have. Why?”

“You… remind me of a someone I know.” Sanders gave no impression that she was lying and if she was, Jane could not see it at all. “Rather… you look like her.”

“What? What do you mean by...?” Jane wanted to stay and ask more but her timer went off. The others. “Crap. I should go.”


	5. Chapter 5

When John came to the meeting spot, the sun’s rays had been covered up entirely by clouds leaving the streets and the city in a darker than usual grey state. He had procured a fair share of explosives and a few of EMP grenades. Mostly military grade stuff. He hadn’t learned much other than Eden had ‘no apparent weaknesses,’ at least on the outside. His sister wouldn’t be happy about that, but they both knew that nearly anything could be taken apart from the inside… He forced himself to smile as Miranda came into view. She was looking more… determined than usual. That probably meant she had more news than he did. “Hello Dinah. Did you find anything useful?”

The woman’s expression softened as she was greeted by John. “I did… Solomon. Exactly what Alison ordered.” Miranda looked like she was trying to keep a straight face when she called him by alias since they were out in the open. John had to agree though. Solomon was an unusual sounding first name for someone to have. “There’s only one depot where sky-cars are make runs to Eden.”

“Oh?” That was good news. John was considering hijacking or stealing a vehicle from a family that probably needed it if they weren’t able to get anywhere… “Which one?”

“The… Buckingham Depot…” Her voice saddened at the mentioning of the name. There were countless historical sites turned some sort of turian site to serve as a constant reminder of humanity’s defeat, though Big Ben was an exception as it was way too old. “They have a car that leaving for Eden in half an hour. Not sure if it’s a supply or maintenance run or not, but that’s going to have to be our way in…”

“Huh. Well that’s better then what I have. Eden has no exterior weaknesses so we’ll have to improvise.” He mentally cursed himself as Miranda’s expression was basically saying ‘dammit,’ but he knew it was necessary to share the information as it could cause problems. 

“Hey guys…” Jane quietly greeted the two as she came by with Lang. They were both fiddling with something that resembled some sort of high tech visor. It seemed that they were both genuinely interested in the piece but John could tell something was weighing on his sister’s mind…more than usual. 

“You all right sis?” 

“Huh? Yea. I guess. It's nothing important. Tell you about it later. Anyway as you can see, Eddie picked up some new tech.” John only nodded, obviously unsatisfied the answer, but knew better than to press it. It just wasn’t the time. “Danner.”

“Right. As Alison said, I picked up some interesting tech. I was roaming the network, undetected of course, digging for information for the mission, when I found someone else doing the same thing that I was but their whole execution of it was so flawless that I wouldn’t have found it, well it was more they found me and then they questioned me about what techniques I was using!”  
“Less tech talk please….”

“Right. Sorry. Dr. Gavin Hossle and Dr. Conrad Verner. Brilliant people even if Verner is a bit… strange. They’re members of the London resistance tech division and apparently they were brought here because of their business ventures in Asia were unwanted by the turians. Also co-creators of Arliake Technologies, the illegal Asian technology firm...” That one fact alone was astonishing to hear of. The underground company was the reason why Asian resistance groups including one of Cerberus’ branches had a technological edge over their western counterparts. They (illegally) had access to (also illegal) Omni-tool technology and high-grade armour that most of the world did not have, though of course Cerberus made sure its operatives had one. 

“Anyway, said that their acting was leader was contacted by Alison to help us out, so they did and we met up. They gave these two visors which should theoretically translate turian script, detect heat signatures have some other nifty features like some sort of targeting system or something like that, though they’re never actually been tested… and a bunch of information that they’ve pulled out from the turian’s network. Made an arrangement for them to send some of what they recovered to some of our global subsidiaries and for the organization to help connect to the resistance here to them and other groups.”

Following Lang’s excited explanation of how he spent his hour, Jane listened to John and Miranda’s findings quietly with that sharp look in her eye that she always had when planning. “Okay… we’ll be breaking into the former Buckingham Palace under the guise of cleaners...” One of the key cards that Petrovski had procured for their mission was to a backdoor where the cleaning crew entered from. Apparently the earth-based turians didn’t like cleaning up their own facilities in a place that reeked of centuries’ worth of smelly humans as they had a ‘heightened sense of smell.’ “We’ll smuggle in what we need with the cleaning equipment…and since their scanning technology hasn’t changed, Solomon and I will be able to get around that… Dinah.”

“Cleaning crew had already been contacted and paid. Though they were unhappy that they had to come down with a 24-hour flu but they send their regards and wish for the best.”

“Good… break in first. Find vehicle later.”  
\---  
Getting in to the building itself was easy. In John's experience, no turian had ever bothered wasting time on a human with its head down going about its way doing a task he was ordered to do. And because of that, it was ridiculously easy to take out the turians stationed there though they opted against killing them. For all the team knew, their vitals were being monitored and killing someone could call forth unwanted guards and security to shut them down, though they did ensure that they would be knocked out for at least a day courtesy of some fancy drug that Cerberus created solely for that purpose. 

It took the team a short walk through the once-grand hallways before they came across the sky-carport. "All the vehicles are prepped for leaving commander." John made his assessment right before they began to pack their equipment appropriately onto the shuttle. This was basically it. Everyone was armed to the teeth basically by the time they lifted off.  
\---  
"...." The lack of words between everyone basically summed up the awe and disbelief as Eden came into view after the hour and a half extremely shaky flight piloted by Lang. Eden was a giant floating sphere where the bottom half was a shimmering silver and the top half was a serene blue. It looked like there was a city on top of the prison that looked partly Prothean in design but there was a definite feminine touch that had been applied to it.

"Dammit! They have GARDIAN defense turrets!" Miranda frantically yelled as Eden's defences fired off a volley of laser blasts. Eddie did his best to maneuver the craft so that it'd sustain minimal damages but everyone knew that GARDIAN systems had 100% accuracy. “We’ve been hit!”

"Shit... We're going to have to do a dump and run." Lang sounded like he was obviously trying to cope with the threat of death directly in front of him. as the vehicle swerved towards the 'city.' Still it was a daring maneuver as he swerved the vehicle towards the 'city.' Heck, he wasn't even a pilot and it also looked like he was half guessing the sky-car’s functions. Untested translators could only do so much. 

"That's fine Eddie. Keep her as steady as possible and take us as close as you can... Everyone has mag-boots right?” Jane's suggestion took everyone off guard. It was likely that the exterior was metal and John himself was wearing that type of footgear, but coming from Miranda's hysterical expression and Lang literally turning around to face her meant that they did not. 

"Jane please don't tell planned to suggest that earlier."

"What? Course not. I'm a human. I improvise." Jane just shook her head as she pulled out what looked like a grappling gun of sorts. She had definitely borrowed that from the Resistance. "Open the door Lang, I need a clear shot." 

John could only watch, spellbound as the sky car door opened why they were still in flight. Everyone else braced themselves for the change in pressure and the violent and cold winds, but those didn't seem to bother Jane. She let out a deep breath and closed her eyes before fearlessly holding onto the vehicle's side and aimed the gun at one of the bluish towers.

Seeing the shot successfully fire and the cable violently extend, Jane let out a small sigh of relief. "The connection's magnetized." Following that she directed both him and Miranda to secure themselves to the cable and jump out. they didn't even bother questioning the order as secured themselves to the line and leapt into the open sky... and soon after they both heard the explosion that occurred above them.  
\---  
As both he and Miranda plummeted, John could see what Jane was trying to get them to do. They'd be swing into Eden and land hopefully close to the top. Or a building that was by the top. 

After what seemed like an eternity after, John saw Eden coming into directly into his view until it hit him. He had successfully 'landed' on the prison. A good two metres away from him he found Miranda though she wasn't as lucky as she had landed the wrong way and as a result her arm had been injured. "John, where's your sister?" After administering some medi-gel, he quickly surveyed the sky. Their sky-car had literally been blown out of it... where were Jane and Eddie? 

"...Hello up there! As much as I appreciate the view from here, you might helping with pulling us up?" His eyes eventually fell onto the red-haired woman who had relief plastered to her face slowly climbing up the side of the spherical prison. It looked like that they hadn't been able to get out the same way that he and Miranda had though it was good to see that they were safe.  
\--  
"Well that was something I didn't expect to do in London." Miranda let out exaggerated and almost panicky huff. Well at least we're here... but I don't see an entrance... Agh."

"Miranda... are you all right?" Eddie himself needed medi-gel as well as he suffered from a few burns.  
John eyed the biotic carefully. She had definitely broken something. “Miranda…”

“Not now John. We need to focus on the mission. What are we supposed to do now? Look around for an exterior hatch? Because I don't see one.”

"I could try one of the card keys at one of those towers..." Somehow Petrovski had obtained an unverified card for access to Eden but there was no way to guarantee that it'd work, and the towers themselves were a long distance away. "Or hack their network so that they open a door."

"We could lower ourselves to where the main hangar and try opening the doors from there..." It would definitely be faster going down...

"Geniuses. Sometimes you guys think too much." Jane just shook her head as she approached the group. She was holding a detonator. When had she set explosives? And more importantly, when did his sister slip away? She raised three fingers and started counting down. "Tic. Tic."

Boom. Regardless there was now a smoking hole on top of Eden that they could get in through. "C'mon let's go."

\---  
“Well they at least know they have visitors.” Jone quickly followed his sister as he dropped down behind her into the prison with the others. They found themselves in a pristine white hallway with the alarms beginning to sound. 

She let out a deep breath that sounded like it was being held far too long before directing for them to follow her hoping that their guessed route would take them where they needed to go. “Lang. How are we doing in communications and tech?”

“I have four wireless transceivers. Earpieces. Have a limited range.” As they ran down the hall passing by some corridors he handed everyone one which they all began to test. “Well other the comms, your cloak that might work at times and our visors, that’s all we have for working tech.”

“Okay then. Well our primary here is finding our people. Stay in range if you can, unless you can’t… Remember, we only have one shot at this. I know no one wants to hear this but… the mission takes priority and time is not our friend, so if it comes down to it… leave the fallen behind…and hope they find their way out.” They knew that this was the case in every mission that did go south. Cerberus protocol dictated that operatives were still responsible for securing their objectives then leaving immediately, even if it was without the entire team. That’s just how it was to minimize losses and it didn’t benefit anyone if an entire unit was captured. 

Eventually, they came across a door leading them to an intersection. Alarms were still blaring as she eyed a grate for a vent. “...We’re splitting up here. Eddie, Miranda, I want you two moving as a group. Your primary for now is locating escape vehicles. We don’t have that much time so we need to get this done. After that’s done, your secondary will be cutting power to Eden. Take out engines, power cells, whatever. Anything and everything you can that’s needed to keep this tub afloat but-”

“Take them down? Why? If this fortress crashed planetside it’d cause catastrophic damage and possibly…” 

“But don’t actually let this thing…yet. Cerberus apparently thinks Eden is far too treacherous to be allowed to exist from the outside world, but I’ll reserve judgement.” Jane knew it was a pretty extreme thing to do though and sighed “I need you to cut all power to anything and everything that this boat can afford before it starts dropping out of the sky. No final pulling of the plug until my say-so, and that hopefully won’t be til we’re off this boat and we know that the prisoners will be safe...” From the schematics though John had already had the impression that even if Eden crashed, most people would experience injuries ranging to mild concussions to bruises but she didn’t bring that up so it was more about a landing zone. 

“…Understood.”

“Okay, also try to do something about their communications but don’t shut down the intercom if you come across it. Might need it to communicate and if we do… then improvise. John.”

“Yup. You want me to look for an alternate escape route, to what you told Miranda and Eddie to on the side if I can afford to but only if I’ve located our prisoners. On top of that you also want me to break individuals out that can either help with escape, are in extreme dire need or have potential to help Cerberus out… Or just cause chaos in general.”

“…Exactly. Though if anyone does come across Eden’s controls and it can hopefully be piloted…” 

“We’ll use them to land and hopefully that will not require the destruction of the city below us.” 

“Yes. Thanks bro.” She revealed a weak smile before nodding good-bye and activating her cloak. "Good luck everyone."


	6. Chapter 6

Jane was quiet as usual as she moved through the vents. If she was lucky they’d run throughout the entire prison though couldn’t be sure if there any surprises waiting for her. She half-wished that John had been had put in charge of this operation as this was his type of mission, but Harper had insisted. She didn’t like being responsible for the lives of others outside her team. She didn’t actually like being in a leadership position but circumstances and necessity dictated otherwise. 

She had to admit though, it was odd. There were alarms going off yet she had yet to come across a single guard in the hallways below. She honestly doubted that this craft was completely automated since the “most problematic” for the turians were sent here, the oppressed population of London notwithstanding. After a period of crawling, Jane could see a room that looked suspiciously like a control centre of sorts. 

She slowly removed the grate and dropped down. Definitely a control room. It wasn’t where the prison controls were unfortunately, but at the least she could kill the security alarms and cameras from here. The room itself was fairly large and empty, just like the hallways she had passed by. This was extremely odd…. 

Her eyes focused on seat that had a view of the outside world. It looked like the piloting controls were here as well. As she examined the, what she took to be a makeshift cockpit, her eyes fell onto the stack of folders that had been left there on top of the seat. Almost as if they were waiting for her to read them. Curiosity getting the better of her, she opened them.

“Oh my god…” Jane felt sick as she read files in folders. There were countless papers as well as graphic images which made it all the more worse, attached to them that documented the various things that prisoners had gone through. It was also weird how the documents were actually in English but the information was disturbing enough to put thought away from her mind. 

There was a girl who was taken from the mother that was gunned down in front of her eyes because of her biotic potential. “Subject Zero” ended up being experimented on and was basically a walking biotic weapon of destruction as did several other biotic kids She was kept in cyro because of her ‘violent behaviour’ though Jane couldn’t help but respect her. Zero and a bunch of the other kids had worked together against their guards and had actually succeeded in resisting them though the victory was short lived and they were quickly gassed then put on cyro. 

There were experiments that involved forcefully injecting people with something called thresher maw acid simply to see the results. There were some experiments that involved putting control chips into people’s heads. They even tried hooking people up to computers to create hybrid AIs because of a suggestion Lorik Qui’in made. Some of the luckier ones only ended up with torture or beatings. The list went on and on though it thankfully did not extend to all the prisoners. Disgusted and ready to throw up, Jane closed the folders and decided it would be best to set the explosives. She wanted to prevent horrors such as this, though she knew she wouldn’t be able to do anything about the findings made that had reached the Hierarchy. 

”I figured that one of the vermin would stay put given the right bait.” His eyes were cold and testing. The barefaced turian looked like one stalking its prey. He had tech armour… and had an entourage of guards with him, all with their guns trained on her. “Though I must say human, I’m impressed. No one has journeyed this far to deliver themselves into my custody. Warden Kuril, at your service.”

Jane remained silent and glanced at the guards as the warden pulled his rifle at her. She’d be able to take them when it came down to it given the right distraction. “You wouldn’t happen to know of an individual named Shepard would you?”

“I don’t know who or what you’re talking about.” The turian waved for his guards to lower their weapons, though only slightly. He could tell that she was ‘hiding’ information. 

“Don’t try my patience, human. You know of whom I speak of.” He slammed his weapon against her chest, effectively knocking out the breath out of her and pinned her against the wall. She clenched the files tightly in her hand as she remained defiant. The monster in front of her… Kuril, was the one who had sanctioned the activities at Eden. Jane was going to kill him even if that was the last thing she’d do. 

“Why, why do you want to do with him? Or her?” She exaggeratingly began folding the folders to stick in her pack to disguise her hand slipping into her pack to grab a few flash-bang grenades. Her question was used to buy time though it was also used to sate curiosity at the turians’ intended fate for her. Jane let out a small laugh as she considered how she was effectively half of their target. “I saw the records of what you’ve done to your prisoners. What makes you think that I’ll just tell you?”

“If you don’t human, I’ll kill you.” Kuril snarled as he pointed his gun directly to her temple. 

“Hah! That’s the interesting thing about death threats. You intend to do that anyway.” Jane knew she needed to have the prison taken out of commission, but she’d worry about that later. Right now all she needed to do was to get in range of the others and inform them of her decision. She revealed a daring smile as she grasped tightly onto the grenades and shut her eyes. She'd be able to take out a maximum of two guards before disappearing... “I’m afraid I’ll have to turn down you oh-so gracious offer.”

“Stop her you idiots!” Kuril exclaimed furiously to his the other turians, but it was too late. Jane shielded her eyes as she threw down the grenades. She pulled out her gun and let off two shots though not at Kuril. Their close proximity made it unlikely that she'd hit anything but his armour. When the turians finally recovered from the flare and noise, there were two guards dead on the floor and she was gone.


	7. Chapter 7

John grumbled as went down the list of prisoners at the security and records console he was at. He had stumbled upon it after being spotted by a guard who was promptly taken care of sometime he entered the prison blocks. It was weird he had hardly encountered any guards but it made sense how there wouldn’t be so many turians stationed here. There was nowhere to go even if you got out of the prison blocks… It truly amazed him to no end how the turians were able to to so efficiently… compartmentalize people with no remorse. 

There were several last names on the list of thousands he recognized, though none belonging to their priority targets. They belonged to former Alliance members, and some now dead… Even now he could hear the muffled cries of prisoners far out in the complex crying for mercy that had never been given.   
It was during times like these he hated being on Cerberus’ payroll. Regardless of what he saw or heard, he couldn’t take actions that could directly jeopardize the mission, and the idea of opening up all the cell blocks would certainly do that. With any luck, Miranda, Eddie and his sister would be doing better than he was. He at least knew that Jane had found some sort of control centre since the alarms had been shut off and she’d do one of a few things if something occurred. If she ran into some complications she’d try and regroup with him and the others as soon as possible though if she hadn’t run into any trouble, she’d probably go somewhere to cause a large enough distraction that probably involved explosions, which would be felt from wherever they were, elsewhere to give everyone more time…

\---  
He let out an annoyed sigh as he finished going through the records. Their targets weren’t in this location. That meant that they were either dead or elsewhere… He began manipulating the console to open up the security navigation. It looked like there were several small malfunctions throughout the ship going on simultaneously and small enough not to rouse suspicious… Miranda… At least she was faring better than he was. She probably also installed some viruses that were designed to take out the larger functions at the touch of a button like usual as well. He debated for a moment as he analyzed the data in front of him. He could probably try and meet up with them…

“John… are you… there?” 

“Jane? That you?” There was a bit of tuning and volume issues with the comms, but the fact that she was transmitting meant that she was close… “Where are you?”

“Ah. Above you… nearby? Not sure exactly… Oh wait here’s another grate… be there in a sec.” About a minute later, she dropped down from the vents. There was a dark, grim look in her eye… He was going to ask what had happened when she just handed him a folder with a pack of files. 

John quietly scanned through the papers and it soon became obvious why there was dark cloud hanging over the person in front of him as she went over the prison blueprints and compared that to the security information on screen. 

“We are taking this thing out. Jane sounded extremely calm as she made the decision though he knew she was furious at the existence of this place. She let out a sigh before focusing on him. “Our targets are located in the upper echelons probably. Kuril likes to keep the most problematic isolated from the rest of the prisoners… so thankfully they’ll all be in one place, though he knows we’re probably heading there… though we should probably find Miranda and Eddie first…” Her eyes glanced over to the cells for a moment. “If all goes well, we can pilot this monster away to ensure that everyone gets out…”  
\---   
After a few moments, they fell into their usual formation. John took the front while Jane brought up the rear as they proceeded to head throughout the hallways. They weren’t planning on acting with stealth so it was easier to just walk about the hallways to find the others. They had gone up two stairwells when they both heard a distinct groan in their ears. 

 

“Anyone… there?” Both Shepards had concern on their face as they turned to face each other. They weren’t expecting to hear Eddie’s voice and it sounded weak… 

“Eddie… where are you? What happened?” John bit his lip as his sister spoke. He was supposed to be with Miranda… and she had been injured...

“Turians…took Miranda… I don’t think I’ll make it...” John’s immediate thought was to go find her but Jane just shook her head and kept a hand firm on his shoulder, before waving for him to follow. 

“Where are you? And how’s your medi-gel supply?”

“Well I’m close. Engineering bay…. They took the remaining medi-gel we had…” It sounded like Lang was coughing up blood and on the verge of passing out.

“Did you find a few possible escape routes?” John was furious at himself as he remained silent. He should have made a bigger deal about Miranda’s injury…

“Yea… there’s... in the loading bay… a small fleet of ships… won’t be able to get everyone out though… they only have capacity for four…” As they continued onward, the signal got stronger but Lang kept on sounding weaker and weaker.

“I need to go find Miranda…” His sister shot him an angry look that was saying ‘no’ again. He knew he was letting his emotions get the better of him but the turians knew who Miranda was and who her father was, there was no telling what they would do to her…

“Eddie, are you still there?” Jane asked optimistically though she knew that he was probably unconscious. “Dammit...”

He wasn’t really even paying attention as she called for him. Again. He said nothing as she slugged him, before he found his words again. “Sorry. It’s just... Not thinking straight right now.” If something bad happened to Miranda he’d never be able to forgive himself!

“JOHN!” “I know you’re worried about Miranda, but if you go after her, you’ll jeopardize both YOU and HER! She will not want you rashly acting and getting yourself killed.” She let out a relieved sigh as she at least knew he was paying attention now. ‘Look. You go find Eddie. Give him as much first aid as you can then get him to the shuttles he spoke of. After I need you to head back to the prison blocks and open certain cells housing specific occupants…”

“Got it?” He nodded immediately to her inquisitive look. He knew that she was trying to get him to focus. She never liked it when he and Miranda went on missions together… If something happened to one of them, the other would become so distracted… Distracted enough that it’d affect their missions. After he was reassured enough that she’d be bring Miranda back, John allowed himself to feel a slight feeling of relief knowing that his sister had a plan to get everyone out of this prison.


	8. Chapter 8

After getting out of an elevator that took her to the prison upper levels Jane double checked the blueprints. There was a large amount of power being diverted to a location nearby which probably was where her targets were…. And that was most likely were Miranda would be taken to be interrogated or tortured for information…

As she walked down the disgustingly pristine white hallways, the sonar and infrared on her visor caught the figures of various humans in separate cells…. Her eyes eventually caught on to a room that was full with turians and a lone female human who had her hands cuffed behind her back. She was being lifted up by the neck by a turian with tech armour…which undoubtedly was Warden Kuril was holding up Miranda. 

Judging from the jaw movements, he was trying to interrogate her for information about something. Probably Shepard... or their team here. She frowned as the woman was thrown to the groan and her body writhed at the impact. On top of that broken arm as the sensors revealed… The interrogator was definitely losing patience… and her friend had most definitely been left too long in the good warden’s ‘tender mercies’….

After a few seconds, Jane made the decisive decision to line the walls of the hallway with her remaining explosives. She figured that whoever was here probably had a grudge against their captors and well… it was the second best distraction besides the explosion which she set the timer for almost immediately.

Her gun was trained at Kuril’s head as she focused and clicked the trigger setting off the explosions.  
\---   
The first thing that went was her hearing though Jane could see a bunch of people emerge from their destroyed cells. Some of them looked confused… others angry. In particular, a man with sharp features who killed a turian with his bare hands by snapping his neck, and an angry biotic woman with a shaven head followed by a bunch of other biotic kids who immediately charged for the turians with fistfuls of energy almost immediately after Jane had taken Kuril out. That was probably Subject Zero and the ones she worked to protect… The man though, Jane recognized as Raymond Ashe. 

Amongst the freed group of restless people, was a man with an unusual limp, two young women from the Williams family photo and… a man who looked like Paul Anderson… Jane just nodded to them and pointed to her ears for a moment before walking over to Miranda. “You all right Miranda?”

Seeing her friend nod her head in confirmation, Jane let out a sigh of relief and helped her up before turning to the other freed prisoners. They had half expectant looks on their faces though Anderson looks slightly bothered by something. “Look… I know you all must have questions, I can’t really hear anything that well at the moment, but my friend Miranda will do the best she can to answer what she can… Other than that, my name is Jane, I’m a member of Cerberus and I was tasked with finding Raymond Ashe by an Oleg Petrovski and to find any members of the Williams family… Also I met up with a Daniel Coats to find the leader of the Resistance…”

The group in front of her was quiet for a moment as Jane pulled out the files folder she had taken earlier and let out a sigh. Her face darkened as she handed some of the files over to the people whose faces she was able to identify thanks to the images in the folders. There was still a large number of files still in her hand….which made her think that she didn’t do enough, as usual. As she watched some of the prisoners break down and cry against the walls, Jane felt a firm but reassuring hand over her shoulder. “David Anderson…”

“Thank you.” He still looked slightly bothered by something though he was gratefully. She had carefully watched him talk to an elderly woman who then proceeded to help Miranda out with her broken arm. 

She smiled back sympathetically before her expression hardened again. They still had a mission to do. Her eyes fell onto the crowd and she swallowed carefully before speaking in a calm voice. “I want to take Eden out of the sky…” Voices became hushed as she continued. “The problem is that there’s a significant number of prisoners held on the lower decks and if I’m honest… though piloting this thing would be better…” 

“I can fly this thing.” Jane raised an eyebrow as she didn’t expect the man with the limp raise his hand though she knew better than to judge by appearance. She herself took advantage of how turians thought humans were weak and pathetic to get the better of them.

“Joker are you sure?” That was an interesting nickname that Anderson used to address the man. She was honestly surprised that a pilot was being kept here instead of the lower prison areas. 

“It’s a turian ship… you can pilot this?” As Jane added her piece, she did little to hide her surprise. She hadn’t expected any person to know how to pilot anything turian properly, though Eddie as an exception as he at least had a translator. 

“Yea, that’s why they threw me in here. I’m the best pilot you’ll ever find on Earth, and the only one who flew turian ships.”

“And got caught for it...idiot.” The bald woman walked forward with a wicked grin on her face. She had a surprisingly calm demeanour at the moment despite her file saying that she had been experimented on for the better half of her life before being moved to Eden.

“Whatever, Jack…Anyway, I can do it. Just show me where the controls are for this creepy piece of work.”

“Okay… though… I’m not exactly sure where we can crash this thing...”

“I have something to add, and I think Cerberus would approve.” Miranda came over accompanied by two Williams sisters who she had gotten acquainted with. She’d probably share her information after their mission. “Regardless of whatever tech this… thing can offer, it’s not worth it keeping after learning of what this prison represents.” Several appreciative nods were made at that, though Miranda did note that they still had to pull off any data they could find regarding any sort of galactic map that would be needed later for beyond the mass relay and anything that could translate.

“Maybe over closer to the Russian branch? It’s close enough to your base as well I believe…” Ashe grumbled quietly as spoke. He had been here a far shorter time than most but he obviously had enough of this place, though that was quickly rejected by Miranda.

“I would usually agree with that, but half of the population here has some sort of ties to a member of the English population.” 

“Anderson, do you know of any location that we can use that’s close enough to London? We need to get back there so we aren’t flagged as permanent prisoners of the city who go missing then have watchdogs following us.” Jane frowned as she considered the situation. She mainly wanted to sink Eden into the ocean but that wasn’t an option since there were too many people to take into account. 

“Well… we could drop this into the Wall…” There were some confused whispers amongst the general crowd. The Wall was the uncreative term that referred to the walled prison around the city and was impossible to get under or over without triggering some sort of alarm by the English populace. 

“All right then… I’ll take… Joker, over to the control room I found earlier. Miranda, I want you to take Ashe and…” Her eyes fell on the Williams sisters.

“Abby and Sarah.”

“Abby and Sarah to find John and make sure that everything is going all right… and bring some doctors to Eddie… Jack…uh… can you bring a team to make sure that there aren’t any more turians on board that we don’t know about?” Jane hesitated with asking the biotic to take on clean-up since it was basically killing aliens since she never liked to ask someone to kill others.   
“Sure, no problem.” Jack just shrugged as she turned to her crew of biotics. They seemed itching for action… Jane could only sigh at that. She knew that turians had brought hell to Earth but they had only encountered an extremely small sample of an even larger population, so it’d be unfair to judge the entire race…

“Jane, hold it. Have your friend take these guys with you.” Anderson waved a few members of the large group over. They were probably about their age… “They can help your… brother with engineering, and are some of the best I know.”

“Miranda…” The biotic only nodded before walking off back the way Jane had come from. Then she turned to Anderson with suspicion. “I never said I had a brother. How did you know that I had one?”


	9. Chapter 9

missed a section by accident. added it at the end.

John had no words when he saw Miranda still in one piece. He hardly paid attention to the fact that she brought a small team of doctors and engineers along with two other young women with her though he did keep Eddie’s condition in the forefront of his mind.

“John… your sister would not approve with the way you’re behaving now,” she just rolled her eyes as he greeted her. She knew better than he did about Jane’s views on fraternization during a mission.

“Right. Sorry Miri.” After a small round of introductions with the crew that she came with, John pointed out several locations on Eden that still needed to be modified to be taken out when the plug was ready to be pulled. To his surprise, the Williams also volunteered. He didn’t know that they had mechanical expertise but agreed nevertheless. 

After they had left, John directed the crew small team of doctors over to where he had propped Eddie up against a wall along with several other prisoners who required medicatl attention. Lang had a weak smile on his face though it looked like he was at least wasn’t in any life-threatening condition as an elderly doctor began examining him. 

“I’m so sorry Eddie… Are you… all right?”

“Don’t worry about it Miranda…I’m just glad that everything worked out…” Lang turned his attention quickly to John. “The mission… where’s your sister?” Eddie tended to be very wary around anyone he didn’t know that well due to his job as a communication specialist. Unless he could trust that someone, he didn’t take their info at face value, so he usually opted to get around calling associates by name around others. 

“She’s all right. She’s planning on having Eden crash down below us. Apparently there’s actually a pilot who knows what he’s doing.” She gave him a smirk as he nodded. “It’s the best shot we have at getting everyone out of here alive…” 

John nodded in agreement at that as his gaze glanced quickly over the open cells. After attending to Eddie’s wounds to the best of his ability, he had found the intercom system and announced that he was opening the cells though he stressed that people were not to move around if they wanted to get out of here alive, and that anyone who needed medical attention come over to the console office were they were now to receive some basic first aid. He also mentioned that he – Cerberus had a plan to get everyone out, and to his own surprise, they had listened…

“Oh my…” The elderly woman smiled as she finished examining Eddie with saying that “his body still needed rest and he just be taking it easy due to the concussion he had received though the majority of the medi-gel that had been applied earlier, had done its job.” She had a wise calming look in her eyes as she turned to face John. “David wasn’t kidding about the resemblance.”

“I’m sorry?” John raised his brow at that. He had no idea of what this woman was talking about. 

“My name is Karen Chakwas. I’m one of the head doctors from the Resistance. Former Alliance. You should know that Cerberus seriously needs to update its security if we’ve been able to retrieve files pertaining to your identity, John... and your sister’s.”

It was true that their cyber-security at their Cerberus cell wasn’t the greatest since there were no tech specialists who excelled in that field, and those they had previously had been moved to where they were needed, but it was by no means insecure enough for turians to hack into. That however wasn’t what caught his attention… “Exactly what do you mean by resemblance...?”

“May I have your attention please.” John instantly recognized the modified voice that was running over the intercom. It sounded more electronic than human but no one seemed to mind. It was the same one that they both if they came across a situation where they had to speak with the possibility of enemies around. “This is… Commander Shepard of Cerberus.” Silence echoed the room immediately. “Currently, we are descending towards London with the intent of smashing Eden into the wall around the city to minimize damages. Anyone on board will survive the event though we can expect turian forces to arrive at our position almost immediately.” 

Jane swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “In Eden’s shuttle bay, we have located a large number of vehicles although the language is foreign. We have a basic idea of how they work but given that there are a large number of people here… we request that only children, elders and those who are inured, or physically or mentally impaired to begin heading over there immediately so that they can escape via the shuttles immediately. They will all have to be sent off in different directions to maximize chances… Members of the Resistance are also requested to accompany them to help increase the chances of survival and escape… as are any other members of Cerberus, including my team.” John glanced at Miranda and Eddie at that. Did Jane plan to stay? “Unfortunately, I must apologize, as the shuttles do not have the capacity to hold everyone, other passengers will be prioritized based on their expertise in emergency and survival situations… and the time they have been kept in captivity.” There were several muffled cries amongst the prisoners. “Anyone else will have to wait until we land though I do not intend to allow anyone be sent back to this prison, or any other. I intend to stay here and do my best to buy everyone as much time as possible to escape… Unto that, I regret to say that… I ask for anyone proficient with weapons to help us buy the others time, though I realize that may be too much to ask for.” 

“You heard that everyone.” An unfamiliar male voice was speaking now, though he was definitely authoritive. “There are only 75 shuttles on board that supposedly have the capacity for about 25 people each if they jam themselves next to each other. Maybe, thirty if you’re lucky. Anyone who doesn’t get on board a shuttle needs to come up to the central control room. We’re working out alternate escape routes for everyone else and distributing weapons to volunteers. Anderson out.”

To everyone else outside, it seemed to take them a moment for the words to sink in, before they began scrambling. That was very different in contrast to the three Cerberus members and the doctor from the Resistance. 

“That was Anderson as in David Anderson?” Eddie broke the ice though he knew that he was in no condition to go anywhere, and neither was Miranda…

“Yes. That was David. He leads the local Resistance movements and coordinates half of the operations in the European Union… though he also helps out with the Resistance movements in Mexico…” Chakwas was fairly quiet as she helped Eddie up. She was probably thinking that there was no way Lang was going anywhere too. 

“I guess Jane’s already decided to stay behind…” John could vaguely feel Miranda’s gentle hand on his shoulder as she spoke. He only nodded and remained silent. “John…?” A quiet question. “What are you going to do?”


End file.
